EMPOWERS Partnership Holds Its Regional Symposium

As a part of its quest to share valuable information and knowledge with regional experts on how to better involve the end-users in the management of water resources, EMPOWERS Partnership organized its Regional Symposium in Cairo, 13-17 Nov. 2005.

Participants after the final session

Adopting the title "Water is Everybody's Business," the Symposium brought together 66 practitioners, researchers and policy makers from 11 countries to discuss best approaches leading to incorporate rural communities and underprivileged groups in the management of their own local water resources.

Thirty presentations were made through six plenary sessions to discuss the themes that are regarded pivotal for the attainment of end-users' ownership and involvement in integrated local water resources management (LWRM). The themes are:

• Important Issues in Participatory LWRM.
• Community Participation in LWRM.
• Incorporating Participatory Approaches in Communication and Education for LWRM.
• Innovations in water and wastewater management.
• New Insights in Decision Support Systems.

The discussion of these themes received further elaboration in the subgroups where the basic components of the themes were dealt with in the light of the practical experiences of the participants and recommendations were made in a collective manner.

The Symposium was concluded with a plenary session to discuss draft recommendations resulting from the overall deliberations of this regional conference. Based on the input of this discussion, the Drafting Committee is currently is working on policy recommendations that shall be indorsed after a final round of feedback from the participants via e-mailing.

The policy recommendations, proceedings, papers and final report of the Symposium are currently available and can be viewd from the links below